


twenty karat solid gold

by parkadescandal



Series: 20kAu [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Sexual Content, sideships if you squint, softcore plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 06:59:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkadescandal/pseuds/parkadescandal
Summary: Almost dying for one another is second nature, so why should shacking up on the low be any different?





	twenty karat solid gold

**Author's Note:**

> ~~~~ me: so i want, like, a trope-y friends with benefits fic. but, somehow canon compliant. and not too explicit.  
> me, a gray ace masochist with somethin' to prove: oh god. it's... i've gotta do this now, don't i
> 
> a few years post-canon normalcy (at least 'til it's not). basically, "how do I say 'it's KHUX' without saying 'it's KHUX.'" imagine sora and riku a little closer in age to where aqua and terra start BBS.

“You’re hilarious,” Riku says, giving Sora a gentle shove as they hike up a hill on the long journey back to the Gummi ship.

“Hey! What’s that for?” Sora says, crossing his arms. 

“You’re absolutely clueless! In the past two weeks I’ve watched three princesses and a prince make a pass at you and all you did was wave goodbye.” 

“How do you know that’s what they’re doing?” Sora says, practically breaking his neck to send an accusatory stare Riku’s way. 

“Because I’m not a brick wall! You’ve started to leave a trail of broken hearts in your wake.” 

“Well, why don’t you jump in, then?” Sora says with a sweeping gesture. “I’m sure princesses would like you even better, all strong and handsome and tall and stuff.” 

“They don’t ask,” Riku says plainly.

“Well, why not?” 

“Well, because--” 

And here Riku’s tone gravels a little, not so light as before. 

“Because what?” Sora says gently, leaning over to peer over at him. 

“Because...I think they know princesses aren’t really my thing,” Riku says quietly, looking down at the ground. 

“Not your--oh,” Sora says, realization dawning. 

“...But I wasn’t talking about me,” Riku deflects, waving his hand. “Didn’t you used to talk all the time about how you were going to sweep all the ladies off their feet with your masculine wiles?”

“Well, I didn’t say it like _that_ , but--” Sora says with a pout. 

“All the same. Don’t you ever think about...taking one of them up on it?” Riku asks, putting a hand to his head. 

“Ha, what, like dating? You and I both know that our gig isn’t exactly staying in one place, how would that work out?” 

“I’m not talking about dating!” 

“Then-- _oh_! Oh. You mean...like...” Sora covers his mouth, gears turning before once again landing on a conclusion. 

“Never mind,” Riku says. 

“No, uh. Yeah,” Sora says without making eye contact. “I’ve definitely thought about it. A lot, actually.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. Haven’t you? Thought about it?”

“Every once in a while, yeah.” 

“Just...to get it out of your system.” 

“I mean, sure,” Riku says dismissively, very focused on putting one foot in front of the other. 

“Have you ever…?” 

“Um… I… Sorta?” he admits, more bewildered than anything. 

“So…” Sora says evenly. “Does that mean...you want to?” 

“Huh?” 

“Do you maybe… want to... with me?”

“ _What_?” 

“I mean, it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.” 

“ _Not a big deal?_ ” Riku says, going up an octave. 

“No, you don’t think, do you?” 

“Of course I think--okay. No. This is not like when we were kids and you wanted to--” 

He gestures aimlessly. 

“‘ _Practice_ ’?” Sora supplies. “No, it’d be the real thing. Sort of.” 

“I just don’t know how you expect us to do this without complicating anything.” 

“I just thought…this would actually be the least complicated thing to happen to us?”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?” Riku asks sharply. 

“I… I don’t… I’m not--”

“No, never mind. I knew what you meant. You know what? I guess you’re right.” 

“I am?” 

“What could it hurt?”

“For real?”

“Don’t make me change my mind.” 

“Wait, so you mean--”

“We’ll talk about it later. Sure. Yeah. I’m saying yes.” 

“Oh! So…”

“I said we’ll talk about it later. Not now.” 

“Okay.” 

They continue the rest of the journey in silence. Sora hums with a little sense of triumph, picking up pace by the briefest degrees each time another wave of realization comes to him about the deal he’s just struck. 

\-- 

Before they’d killed anything but time, they’d spend afternoons like that one sitting on the dock and watching the waves. Sora, with all the confidence of one freshly initiated into the teen years, searches for a nugget of worldly wisdom. 

“You’re probably already really good at kissing,” he says apropos of nothing, arms crossed petulantly. “You’ve probably done it lots of times.” 

“Who knows,” Riku says back in an even drawl. “Maybe.” 

“If you’re so experienced, you should teach me.” 

“ _Teach_ you? How am I supposed to do that?” 

“Show me!” 

“With who?” 

“With me!” 

“What? No way!” 

“Oh, come on. I’m not the worst you could do.” 

“No, it’s just crazy. Go practice on your own. Blaze your own path, I don’t know. Just leave me out of it.” 

“But I don’t wanna blaze my own path! I wanna start off looking like I’m already good at something like _you_ always do.” 

“Hm.” At that, Riku crosses his arms with a huff. “You’re asking me to put a lot of faith in you actually getting someone to spend that kind of time with you.” 

“You spend that kinda time with me.” 

“Oh, shut it,” Riku says, glancing around to secure the perimeter, then grabbing Sora by the arm and dragging him toward their secret place.

“What, trying not to ruin your reputation?” Sora says, squirming out of his grip once in the confines of the cave away from the prying eyes of absolutely nobody. It’s damper than he remembers.

“What are you even talking about? Stand still.”

“Beats me,” Sora says belatedly, obediently standing straight and throwing his hands to his sides, but his eyes are drifting all over the pictures on the cave walls. “So?” 

“So?” 

“Is this the spot where all the wooing happens? Where you’re bringing all your new friends?”

“You’re one to talk,” Riku mumbles. 

“What?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Riku puts his hands on his hips and looks down.

“Sure am feeling romanced over here,” Sora chirps up unhelpfully. “How would you do it?” 

“Okay.” Riku slides directly into his personal space, looking at him with hooded eyes. 

“Hah,” Sora says in response. 

“Is this what you wanted?” Riku says, reaching up to touch his cheek without breaking eye contact. 

“Um,” Sora says.

Riku leans closer. Sora takes a step backwards, finding himself pressed up against the cool of the cave wall, arms still rigid at his sides. They are terribly close. In the moment Sora’s got time to notice the drops of water somewhere in the cavern and hear the running water from directly outside. Eyes closed and a little dizzy with nerves, he reaches up to make the connection, but feels the sudden loss of proximity as soon as he steps forward. 

“Just kidding,” Riku says, turning and walking away with a curt little wave of the hand he’s dropped to his side. “Some things you have to figure out on your own, for once.” 

Chagrined, Sora can’t do anything but stand there for a moment before stomping out of there himself. 

\--

Although nothing eventful had happened on their mission, at least, that the others should be privy to, they make to reconvene with the rest of the group in one of the many rooms somehow contained in Yen Sid’s tower. They take their places at the round table where the other wielders staying in the tower meet for a brief state of the union at the end of their assignments. Sora and Riku are the first to return, but it wouldn’t be long before the others arrived. 

Sora grips the sides of his chair and cheerfully stretches out his legs, then looks over at Riku to give him a wide smile. Riku catches his eye for a moment, then turns away, suppressing a grin. Sora grins wider, feeling a new sensation of bubbliness added to the normal joy he gets from making him laugh. 

He decides he’s not receiving enough attention, and drives his shoe into Riku’s ankle with spectacular force.

“ _Hey_ , what--” he sputters for a moment as response, then composes himself to give him a withering glare instead. It’s comically ineffective. Sora only grins again, which earns him a bemused expression from Riku. 

“So, about earlier,” Sora starts, delighting in watching his face shift from slight irritation to sudden mortification. He turns away guiltily. Sora laughs, “ _...so about earlier_ \--” 

But he doesn’t catch his expression this time, as Kairi walks through the doorway. This time he turns a genuine smile at her. 

“How’d it go?” he asks. 

“Great!” she says brightly. “We’ll probably head back in a week to make sure they aren’t still having any trouble with whatever was causing those strange power outs. Y’know, it’s strange,” she says, pulling out a seat. “They said that it wasn’t what an electrical failure would look like. More like the light had just disappeared.” 

Before she sits, she looks over at them for a moment, flitting her eyes between the two of them. Riku’s dragged his chair about three feet away from him. 

“What have you two been up to?” she says after a second, feigning concern and hiding a smile. 

“Oh, you know, just restoring balance to the worlds, delivering order. You know the drill,” Sora says. Kairi rolls her eyes. 

“It is strange, what you said about the light,” Riku says. He’s made a full recovery, Sora’s a little annoyed to see. 

Whatever he’d have followed it up with is left up in the air when Ventus joins them. 

Since the King wouldn’t return until early the next day, they’d reached quorum with just the four of them. They’re not expecting anyone else, but Roxas patches in then, for the first time in days. 

“I can’t stay long. Anything we should know?” he asks. 

“Not today,” Ventus says. “How are things on your end?” 

“Predictable.” 

None of the wielders assigned to clean up a consistent trail of loose ends in the Dark City were particularly keen to talk about the work, but Roxas least of all. His smile’s a little weary when he mentions a similar light-stealing force to what Kairi had mentioned. Promising collectively to check up on it, they disconnect from the line. 

“Any word from Van?” Sora asks. 

“No. He’s still gone radio silent, it looks like.” 

“Not that he’d bother to check in,” Riku mumbles darkly. Ventus is the only one he’d talk to all the same. 

“Last I heard,” Ventus says, choosing to move past it, “is that he was chasing after something new in the Realm of Darkness. I’m sure he’s got it taken care of.” 

“Me too,” Sora says with a smile, hopping out of his seat. He puts a hand down on Riku’s shoulder, but he pulls away from it. “I guess that’s it for now.” Sora turns around to send another grin Riku’s way to discover that he’s already disappeared. He gives the other two a resigned shrug. Guess they would part ways a little earlier this evening. 

\-- 

“Is it later yet?” Sora says, wrapping his arms around Riku from behind where he’s seated flipping through a book and placing his chin on his shoulder. Riku’s tensed up some. 

“Are you sure about this?” he says in a breath. “Why don’t you try it with someone you actually like?” 

“Because I trust you. And I do like you! And anyway, you laugh at me all the time, so I won’t be that embarrassed if I mess something up. It’s not like you’re just gonna go away forever if I do.” 

“You don’t know that,” he says, shouldering him off and delicately bending the spine of the book inwards so he can find his place again later. He places it down on the desk and stands, looking down at him with his hands on his hips. “Who’s to say I don’t snap and attempt to murder you again tomorrow?”

“Oh. I… I never thought you’d joke about that,” Sora says with a frown. 

“And I never thought you’d ask to sleep with me for fun.” 

“Well, I guess I’ll take my chances. Now show me how it’s done,” he says as he leans in. 

“I don’t know. I think I changed my mind,” he says, sidestepping his touch at the last second.

“ _Hey_ , that’s no fair. It’s not like it means anything. Just once unless we don’t like it. Or until you find someone better.” Sora steps back into his space.

“Or you do?” Riku says, allowing him to stay close but crossing his arms. 

“I’m in no hurry.” With that, Sora takes Riku’s arms and places them on his own waist, looking up in anticipation. After a moment of nothing, he steps up on tip toe and brings their faces close together. 

“What are you scared of?” 

“Nothing. Spiders, maybe. I just don’t know why you think it’s so important. You’re already my closest friend.” 

“I just… I just don’t want you to feel alone, I guess. And, y’know, maybe it’ll help me along the way--It’s not like I haven’t noticed…well, _you_. Besides, you’ve literally already been inside m--er...my heart. What difference could it make?” 

“Fine,” Riku says, rolling his eyes, and closes the gap between their noses. Practicing indeed. 

 

They recoup after some plain and simple fooling around, fumbling and laughing and awkward.

“That wasn’t your first kiss, was it?” Riku asks, inspecting a strand of his own hair for knots. 

“Nah. But nothing serious. Sometimes the princesses would get excited about something I helped them with and kiss me as a weird kind of thank you. And, well, there was one time. With Kairi.” 

“I… figured as much. But just one time?” 

“It was a long time ago. After we first got back to the islands. We were just…talking. I went to hug her but she…anyway, it was weird. She didn’t really try anything again and we didn’t really talk about it.” 

“What do you mean, weird?” 

“It just didn’t feel like the right…time? She didn’t seem upset or anything. But she could tell something was off. I didn’t think about it too much, I guess.” 

“When do you think about _anything_ too much?” 

“Hey.” 

“So, you don’t...like her?” 

“Of course I _like_ her! Maybe just… Not like I thought I liked her. Sick to my stomach about her, maybe.” 

“Do you like _anyone_ like that?” 

“Nah. Who’s got time?” He grins. 

Riku laughs, a derisive huff. 

“Not me.” He disentangles himself from the bed and collects his clothes to throw them back over to his side. 

Sora glances over at the curve of him, letting his gaze linger on his back a moment longer. He watches Riku shuffle back into a pair of pants and then crawl under covers, back turned. 

“Well, I didn’t hate that,” Sora ventures after a moment. “Maybe we can try again?” 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.” 

“No one has to know.” 

“Yeah. They probably shouldn’t.” 

“You’re right. Let’s not talk about it, okay?” he says softly. 

There’s a long silence. 

“Hey. Did you hear me?” 

“Yeah. Okay,” he responds, and that’s the last of it before either falls asleep. 

\--

All of the tower’s wielders have just geared up for that morning’s assignments when they get an incoming transmission. It’s Xion, level but urgent. 

“We hadn’t heard from Lea. He was on a long term assignment--protective detail, pretty much. But he came back today and something was wrong; he was looking for something, he wouldn’t listen to us. We tried to get him to settle down, but then he freaked out. He--he hurt Roxas. He’s gone now. If he comes back I can hold him off on my own for a bit, but I don’t know what else we’re dealing with here.” 

“Oh no,” gasps Ventus, immediately putting in a call to the Land of Departure. 

“Stay there, Xion,” Kairi says. “I’m coming your way. I’ll go get Mickey for backup.” 

They hear Aqua’s voice connect in the background. 

“You don’t think…” Sora says with a note of anxiety, glancing over at Riku.

“That it’s him again?” he says. “It couldn’t be. Not after this long.” 

Sora reaches up as if to touch him but thinks better of it when Riku turns away, suddenly self-conscious about blurring more lines. He shoves his hands in his pockets instead. 

_“Oh, so something goes wrong and I’m the first person you need to check on?”_ they hear Terra’s wry voice in the background, gentle and reassuring when Ventus scrambles to renege. 

They decide to leave the rest of their forces in place in the event that something happens at the tower, and Kairi leaves to go escort Xion and Roxas. Master Yen Sid instructs them to remain put for the time being, opting to wait for news from the stars, and so they wait anxiously in one of the tower’s many sprawling rooms, this one repurposed as a common area, until Kairi returns with the both of them. 

Xion carries in an unconscious Roxas. She’s got his arm pulled around her shoulders and a hand at his waist, and delicately sets him down to rest. 

They’d both look a little worse for the wear regardless--extended time working so close to darkness puts pallor on their skin and circles under their eyes. But Xion takes a ginger step and has a bruise blooming across her cheek, and Roxas sports a bleeding lip and black eye. She explains the blow he took to the head was severe enough that she kept him under for fear of her healing magic failing--whatever had done that damage couldn’t be fixed by run-of-the-mill spells and defenses. 

“Something seemed different than the other times we’ve seen someone possessed,” Xion says, sitting protectively next to him as he sleeps on. “We knew it was him, and _he_ knew it was him, but… It was just strange. I’m worried.” 

She reaches out to move a strand of hair off his face, then places both hands together in her lap and looks down at them. 

“At least we were together,” she says quietly. “I don’t know what would have happened if we weren’t.” 

Sora looks around at a solemn set of faces, grateful as well for strength in numbers. His eye lingers on Riku, who is deep in thought with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand--Sora knew where he’d continue to place his unwavering trust. 

“Lea is pretty tough,” says Ventus absentmindedly to no one in particular, trying once again to connect with someone on the line. “I know we can handle it.” He’s got his knees to his chest and back against a couch.

“So just who exactly are you worried about here, Ven?” Kairi says with a smile, peering over from where she’s perched on her knees on the same sofa he’s leaning against. Ventus taps a button to disconnect his device and turns it over, shifting to put it in his lap. He tilts his head back to look up at her with a lopsided grin. 

“No one!” he says cheerfully. 

“Let’s just hope there isn’t actually anything _to_ worry about,” Xion sighs, gently placing a hand on Roxas’s knee. He stirs. 

“I’m sure there isn’t,” says Ventus, hopping up all of a sudden--they hear the gentle vibration of an incoming call. “There’s nothing to worry about at all!” 

With that, he disappears into the corridors to steal back into his room. The rest of them look on--Ventus seems to have stolen the optimism from the room, and they sit for another sober few moments together before deciding to retreat to their rooms as well. 

\--

“I wonder what’s going on,” Riku mutters distractedly as Sora enters their room. He’s rummaging around in his set of dressers looking for something warm to pull on over his t-shirt. 

“Beats me,” Sora says, crossing his arms and germinating an idea. It _is_ a little chilly in the room, and that’s only starting with the temperature. 

“So cavalier,” Riku lobs at him half-heartedly, finally selecting a sweater but still pacing, as if looking for something to find. Sora pulls a face in disdain, but it seems he doesn’t see it--ah. He’s not making eye contact. Time to turn up the thermostat. 

“Whatever. I’m not worried. Under your fearless leadership there’s not gonna be a problem.” 

This gets his attention. For his troubles, he at least gets an ornery glance. 

“This is what I’m talking about--it wouldn’t be the first time you got overconfident and let something sneak up on you. It’s absurd that you would put all your stock on that line of thought.” 

He turns, reaching down to pick something up off of the floor, and when he stands it’s to find Sora insinuating himself deep into his bubble.

“Now, does that really sound like me?” he says, placing a hand on Riku’s chest. He goes still. 

“Of _course_ it sounds like yo--” he starts, but finds that the gentle shove he gets as a response is enough to send him backwards. He doesn’t go down alone. As he abruptly finds a seat he finds that Sora has made his own, practically on his lap. 

“You’ll get it under control,” Sora says. “So. I really, _really_ didn’t hate that. In fact, I could get used to exactly this arrangement.” He gives him the once over. “Really used to it. So do I get a chance to change your mind?” 

Cornered, Riku finally meets his eyes, expression a little helpless. 

“I guess,” he whispers, interrupted practically before he could round out that second ‘ _s’_. 

\--

They fold Roxas and Xion back into their daily routines with little conflict but for the gentle stepping around Lea’s conspicuous absence. They simply continue their missions a little closer to homebase while they wait for news. 

Sora finds it nice to have them all together again; it puts a small break in the monotony of training and being shipped out from here and there and who knows where every day to keep the balances of the worlds in check. If the air is a little cooler, it’s not for a lack of friendliness, but for concentrated worry, he thinks as an excuse. It’s calmer now than it was when it all first started, at least, but that’s not the only difference. Occasionally Ventus will stop right in the middle of something and reach for his pocket, disappearing from the room leaving only his apologies behind mid-conversation. Although Sora has his suspicions, no one speculates; there’s no need. Everyone who’s ever stayed in the tower has a story of running into Ventus when they were up in the middle of the night, and they won’t do him the disservice of needling him. Sora can empathize. 

On one such night shortly after they politely ignore Ventus vanishing right in the middle of a story, Sora makes a show of slinking off for an early night himself. It was too bad, anyway--apparently one time Aqua had been so irked with Terra that she’d hexed all of his training clothes two sizes too small, but had then immediately felt so bad about it that he’d caught her sneaking in to his room through the window not half an hour later--and now they’d likely never hear what the fallout or what precisely Terra had even said in the first place. 

That aside, it does give Sora a convenient exit, since most of the others usually follow suit. He’s got a pent up energy and an idea or few how to handle it, and if he gets the timing right it’ll turn out in his favor. Over the past few days he’d tried wholeheartedly to wheedle Riku back into bed, _with him_ \--once, he’d followed him out of the room shortly after he’d left to find him suspiciously already asleep, and another memorable time he’d fallen asleep himself on Riku’s bed, from whence he’d had every intention of ambushing him. 

If Sora hadn’t already received the benefits of his enthusiasm a few times already, he’d be worried he was being stood up, since the coquettish yawning and and blinking and _well, that mission today wore me out, are you as tired as I am_? didn’t seem to be doing the trick. He’s hoping to have a little more luck tonight, since while out on assignment today Sora realized he’d lost entire sentences worth of game plan to Riku’s absent expression, which was more intently focused on the movement of Sora’s mouth than the words coming out of it. He’d try to drum up some more positive associations, then. 

At any rate, he’d made sure he was caught _looking_ right back in every instant it wouldn’t get him killed, and even some it would. And if he’d suddenly found himself touching his lips in pensive thought for large stretches of the evening, he wouldn’t be able to deny that it was unrelated. It seemed to be having some effect, at least. Where normally Riku would give Sora a playful shove or a pat on the knee when they laughed at something together, that evening he remained entirely concentrated on literally everyone and everything else instead. Sora was a little miffed that he couldn’t get his attention. 

He hastens to leave the common area, not daring to risk a pointed look over his shoulder. Kairi had situated herself in between the two of them today, and curled up next to Riku so remained. There wasn’t a chance it wouldn’t clue her in to something going on if he’d tested out the come hither eyes, so he simply leaves the room--and them alone--without further fanfare. 

He’s not halfway down the hallway when he hears Kairi’s voice, and stops out of curiosity.

“...alright between you two? Something seems off.” 

“Uh...no? Well, actually.”

Sora stiffens, unable to process, until Riku’s voice resumes.

“I’m just worried. We haven’t heard any news, and all I’ve done is parrot back what Master Yen Sid says about staying put. I imagine he’s not too happy about that.”

“Oh. I guess I thought… I don’t know.” 

“What _did_ you think?” 

“It just looks like you’re avoiding each other! Normally it’s all punches, and teasing, and you trying to shove his head off your lap when he goes all sprawled out like he does. Now you two sit straight up and stay more than about 2 inches away from each other, which I haven’t seen you do when you were in the same room together since we were 5 years old. I just thought it was strange.” 

“I guess I didn’t really notice.”

“That sounds silly to me, since you spend most of your spare energy detaching him from yourself. So I guess he’s mad enough to stop being so touchy-feely, for once.”

“Hm.” 

“He’ll probably get over it soon, though. He’ll forget he was even annoyed in the first place.”

“We’ll see. Maybe he won’t at all with whatever this is. Nothing really surprises me with him anymore.” 

Kairi makes a disapproving little noise, and Sora suddenly comes back into awareness, feeling the guilt of having eavesdropped in on a conversation about yourself. Well, _mad_ wasn’t _quite_ the way he’d describe it, but he’d have to hurry back to prove otherwise, hopefully as soon as possible. And he found he was relieved that the many ways in which he planned to defend himself would remain within the confines of their room. 

\--

Still on his knees, Riku wipes his mouth with the back of one hand and reaches up to smooth his hair back into place with the other, finding his head sore from having it tugged on in spite of it being shorter than it’s ever been. Sora reaches out to return the favor, but he hastily pushes his hand away, looking chagrined: there’s no longer any need, he’s already taken care of it. 

“That was… not your first time doing that, was it,” Sora says between breaths. 

“No,” Riku says coolly, standing up to take a seat next to him on the bed. It seems he’s starting to learn that if he doesn’t initiate any contact after a round or two of fooling around, he’ll end up nearly smothered to death no more than five minutes later--all the same he gets tugged to a horizontal position and squeezed within an inch of his life. _Chew on that_ , Sora thinks. “No, it wasn’t.”

“Really?” Sora pouts in concentration. “Who?” 

He pauses for a long moment, as if debating whether to share. No fair. This is the kind of thing you were supposed to tell your friends, and after all, he’d told him about Kairi. 

“Someone in Twilight Town,” he finally admits. “During the time when, when I was waiting for…well. I was lonely.”

“Oh. Well… What happened, then?” 

“Not a lot. I started to realize I didn’t want to get too wrapped up. It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t have worked out. I guess I just couldn’t let it go on anymore--he wanted me to stick around, but it wasn’t right. I left before it got too involved.” 

“...Did you love him?”

“No.” 

“Have you ever even been in love?” 

A long, pensive moment. “Yeah. But it was never going to work out.”

“Oh. Well, that’s too bad. You deserve someone who will make it work no matter what.” 

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, but not really asking; more sarcastic than anything. 

“Of course. Hey, make me a promise.” 

“Do I dare?"

“Don’t ever let me get in the way. Of being with someone you love. Don’t let me get in the way of your heart.” 

“Duly noted,” he says, removing the placating hand he’d had on his arm. “I’ll be sure to let it know.” 

He turns to face the wall, back pointed towards him, and Sora wakes up to find him already back on his side of the room. 

\--

Days pass which they wile away with training and fieldwork and still no sign of Lea. Roxas is nearly back to the strength he had towards the end of his time with the Organization, this time under only his own power. Everyone stays increasingly clear--he’s pent up and more likely to lash out in ways it’s hard to counter. He’s been practically bouncing on his toes for an afternoon. Sora catches him by the hood of his jacket soon afterwards close to the wing where their rooms are, seeing a backpack in his hand and cussed determination on his face. 

“Where are you going?” he asks. 

“To go look! Somewhere. Anywhere! I can’t just sit around any longer and _wait_. He would never do it if it were me.” 

“So you were going alone?” 

“Oh, I definitely hope not.” That and the sound of her shoes precedes Xion, who steps into view, arms crossed. “He was _supposed_ to wait for me.” 

Roxas stops, chagrined. 

“I was gonna come back.” 

“Were you? Or would I have to mourn _you_ instead? I can’t believe you would take off like that as if I didn’t want him back safe just as badly. And _don’t_ feed me any lines about wanting to keep me safe,” she says as he opens his mouth for the rebuttal. “You know better than I do that it doesn’t matter.” 

“There’s no excuse to do anything alone,” Sora gripes. “Lea is our friend too.” 

“But I know you understand! I don’t want to feel like I’m doing _nothing_.” 

Suddenly and soundlessly Riku has come up behind them, and puts a hand on Roxas’s arm. Sora startles, then crosses his arms. So he’s all cool and collected now, he sees, but hours before deep into the night he’d been writhing below him when Sora’d had his fi--

Well. 

“We’ll all go together tomorrow. We’ll have a much bigger chance of success that way.”

Cowed, Roxas slumps his shoulders, the bottom of his bag grazing the floor, but he does look up at him. “I guess you’re right,” he says with a sigh after a moment. 

Sora sees Riku remove his hand from Roxas’s arm after a lingering moment and wonders for a moment if maybe _Roxas_ isn’t a viable possibility for him. He knew that a long time ago the two of them had had a private conversation that entailed who knows what and gradually their interactions had gone from vaguely antagonistic to almost friendly. So maybe… 

He’d thought maybe Xion and Roxas had had, well, _something_ , but that didn’t mean anything, right? Perhaps the three of them could make something work. Whatever would make Riku happy was fine by him. But something about it just didn’t sit right, he realizes with a frown. He imagined it his duty to help put them together, but oddly enough, the thought didn’t make _him_ happy at all. 

So maybe that just wasn’t the right combination. He tries to think who amongst the circle of their friends he could possibly trust with his best friend’s heart, who in all the people he knew he could leave him to in good conscience. He thinks of the way his eyes had brightened when Ventus had showed off for him in the courtyard the other day, and the way he had started to lean into the way Lea would casually throw an arm around the nearest person who wouldn’t fall over if he did. But those didn’t seem like enough either. He racked his brain to think and think who might be the one, and came up empty. So maybe one day on a mission they’d meet someone, or they’d be hanging out in town, or--

Sudden frustration had made Sora’s face go flush, angered he couldn’t think of someone good enough. And he knew it was selfish, because the longer he waited, the more time he could keep him to himse--

“No, no,” he hears Roxas continue, snapping him out of it. “I think you’re right. We can wait until tomorrow, there’s no need to go off without a plan today.”

Xion raises her hand to give Roxas a bolstering touch on the arm and Sora unconsciously mimics her, reaching for Riku’s forearm before he’s suddenly aware he’s doing it. He snatches his hand back to his side, face burning, then leaves in shame before he can catch anyone’s quizzical expression. 

\--

When they’re not on the hunt or on a mission, sometimes Sora will spare a thought for the whole business of finding that special person, but he’s finding that that journey takes a clear turn to the backburner when he’s got brain space to devote to his new favorite hobby. They’d started simple, which was fine and dandy for a little while, but he didn’t get this far on a lack of imagination. A lifetime’s worth of truth or dare games provided the very important piece of knowledge that there was hardly anything he couldn’t get through base flattery, a whisper in the ear and the boost of an ego; _but you’re so strong_ and _I know you’ll catch on quick_ and _you know I trust you more than anyone_ earns him a guaranteed yes to _come sit right here_ and _no, no, you stay on that end_ and _I know you still have that blindfold laying around_. 

That one he didn’t love so much, but only because it kept him from his favorite part--the look of a complete and total lack of restraint splayed out his face, to the tune of payback for years of being thoroughly bested in every other physical activity, not that he’d been counting. 

Even with everything else the memory of that look alone sent him back into his bed and into his arms and onto his lap, and under and above and within and between, but mostly just to the shower a little more often than was strictly necessary. 

“If you’re bored, we can stop,” Sora says around panting breaths and thin sheen of sweat, his arm splayed out across Riku’s bare chest and his face shoved into Riku’s arm, and it’s never a yes, but it’s never a no, either, and this arrangement continues to suit him just fine. 

\--

Roxas bursts through the gate to the training yard.

“Radiant Garden! The castle.” He brandishes his phone by way of explanation, almost doubled over with his other hand on his knee. “He tried to call, he was trying to tell me that’s where he is. I’m leaving now, objection or no, but… I’d welcome some backup.” 

“Well, you heard him,” says Sora. 

“It shouldn’t be all of us,” Riku says, assessing the pieces still in play. 

“So you’ll stay back, then?” 

“Not a chance,” he says, giving Sora a hard look.That’s fair. 

“I’ll be here,” Ventus says. “I may have to take care of things on this end. …I could use some backup, too.” 

“Me!” says Kairi. “After all, _someone’s_ got to stay on call to bail these two out when something goes wrong.” 

Sora sticks out his tongue. Roxas is already summoning a portal, Xion at his side--they rush through, and Riku follows with a grave expression. Sora throws up a terse wave goodbye and steps through himself. 

Roxas immediately tears off. 

“Wait!” Xion says. “Not alone, you’re not.” 

“I’m headed to the basement,” he calls out over his shoulder as she strides to keep up. 

“Then we should head in a different direction,” Sora says. He waves a hand, knowing full well which one of them knows the castle’s inside outs better than anyone, renovations or no. “Your lead.”

Riku nods. 

“Then we’ll take the top.”

They must prowl through the castle with weapons drawn for an hour or more before they hear anything out of the ordinary. At the sound of agonized yelling from the next room over, Sora breaks off into a run, but Riku blocks him by throwing up his arm. They cautiously step into the room. 

The air is staticy, sparks snapping--before they can register it they’re awash in flames. Lea stands at their origin point, the floor around him smoldering. He has neither his blade nor his chakrams, and he backs up slowly, one deliberate step after another. 

“Lea!” Sora shouts. 

“No, _no_!” Lea yells, bracing himself with a hand to the wall behind him. “You can’t! I won’t let you!” 

“Lea, we can help you,” Sora says, hands out, placating. “Come back with us. You’ve been away too long. Don’t you remember your friends?” 

Sora steps forward, reaching out, but Lea shouts again, and Sora barely has time to register the molten heat before he realizes that Riku has cast a barrier that warps around both of them, strong enough to keep at bay a wall of flame at least twice as tall as they are. The barrier surges, then flickers, then comes into place again for one final moment before disappearing. Riku puts his hands up as if in surrender but keeps his blade high.

“Lea. If you want our help, you’re going to need to get it under control.”

“I can’t, not when you’re that close. I can’t.” The whole of him is burning, and he takes his hands from his head to stare directly at Sora. He locks determined eyes right on him. 

“Try harder!” Riku snaps at him. 

“It won’t… _let me_ ,” Lea growls. “I haven’t come home for a _reason_ \--it doesn’t know--I can’t keep it up, not much longer.”

“Of course you can, Lea. You’ve proven how strong your heart is!” Sora says, and then immediately Lea drops his hands, stands up straight and perfectly still. 

“H-hea--rt,” he says. “Need… heart.” 

He vanishes. Sora feels a burst of air, then starts falling--he cries out and is stopped abruptly when he’s slammed into the wall with a hand pressed into his collarbone. Lea is holding him in solid grip, and as he thrashes he can hear Riku call out his name. He flails his arms upwards, trying to pry himself free, and then Lea drops him. He collapses, hitting his head on one of the exposed metal pipes, and finds himself immediately pinned by Lea’s boot, solidly wedged into his gut. He stares up in shock--darkness oozes off of him, filters out of him from his eyes and his nose and twists around him with an almost palpable stench. 

“Your heart,” hisses whatever thing has officially taken over Lea before it grabs him again, pulling him up and this time reaching for his throat. “I need… Your heart.” 

As he is desperately clawing, Sora sees Riku run towards them, slowed by the bursts of dark magic now creating an obstacle. He dodges one, then another, then takes his blade and slams it to the ground. The room glows, and a chain carries out from Riku’s blade to Lea’s arm, ending the volley of darkness but not the grip his other arm has on Sora’s neck. 

“Let him go, Lea,” Riku says, letting the magic chain wrap around Lea’s body and squeeze ever more like a magical boa constrictor. “So help me if you don’t. I’d hate for you to find out the hard way if you can become a nobody twice.” 

Sora feels the grip around him loosen up just exponentially enough that he can at least wrestle part of the way free, now allowed to speak up but not to move anywhere--he’s still in the grasp of whatever darkness is possessing Lea. 

“Riku! Stop!” he screams hoarsely. “Stop it! That’s our friend!” 

It appears he has no intention of doing so--the glow emanating from his keyblade only gets stronger, and the magic wrapped around Lea is slowly sapping the darkness and then moving on to every other bit of energy his body possesses, the only exception the vice grip he still has Sora in. Sora can’t reach his blade or use his magic or do anything at all except shout, until suddenly a burst of air similar to the one that got him in that mess in the first place explodes around them and Lea collapses to the floor--in that same instant, the chain breaks, blasting Riku to his back, and the magic Sora’s trapped in dissipates, sending him crashing once again to the floor with little ceremony. 

There’s a final burst of air and the static echo of transportation magic, and a helmeted figure hits the ground on one knee. He stands, taking off his helmet and letting his hair spring out from it. He reaches out a hand and casts a spell that seems as if it sucks the time out of the air--a dark force circles the room, pulsing once, and he absorbs it into his palm, where it fizzes, then dies out.

“ _Vanitas!_ ” Riku cries out at the same time that Sora uses the last thread of voice he can muster to attempt the same. 

“Hi, honey,” he smirks in Riku’s direction. Riku regains his bearings and runs towards Sora, bracing him by the shoulders and casting cure magic, pulling him up to a sitting position and frantically patting the back of his head and his chest looking for deeper injuries. Sora stops him by reaching out to grab his shoulders, then firmly pushes him to the side. 

“Vanitas,” he says, clearer than before but still hoarse. 

“Well. _Ventus_ seemed to think there was something you might need my help for, but it seems all I’ve prevented here is natural selection doing its job. Shame.” 

“What _did_ Ven say?” Riku asks.

“That a little project of yours seemed like it was up my alley. I’ve been in the Realm of Darkness hunting down the remaining darklings. I’m _trying_ to do them a favor and put them out of their misery, but one came into contact with me through the Unversed and figured out I’d done a stint in a fancy little orphanage for wayward hearts.” 

He looks at Sora with a sneer. 

“For whatever reason, it wanted in on it. I guess it wanted to become whole again.” 

He crosses his arms and looks over to the side with disdain. 

“Needless to say it wouldn’t have ended well for you. I lost track of it when I stopped it from trying slither its way in my general direction. Won’t happen again.” He waggles his fingers. “I guess on the way out it found a connection to the next best thing--someone closely connected to two other sorry souls who spent some time in there. So _he’s_ in the right place at the wrong time and gets tangled up with our dearly departed friend there, and I guess he started to figure out the hard way what this thing wants.”

He strides over to nudge Lea onto his side with his boot. 

“So this all looks familiar to Ventus, and he has me _keep him apprised_ , but I couldn’t do anything until I could track him down again--which didn’t happen until he linked up with you just now. So you’re welcome.”

“Thanks, Van,” Sora says genuinely.

Vanitas scoffs, then rolls his eyes. 

“Spare me. Have fun with _that_ ,” he says, gesturing at Lea’s unconscious figure sprawled on the ground. By the time they’ve looked back at him, Vanitas has disappeared. 

Sora takes a breath, then stands, a little wobbly. He refuses the hand Riku extends to him. 

“What were you _thinking_?” Sora shouts. “You could have killed him!”

Riku dons an unpleasant scowl but at least has the grace to look away in shame, choosing not to respond. 

“I just can’t believe you,” Sora shouts again, marching over to where Lea lies and reaching to pull him up and put his arm over his shoulder to transport him. 

“I’m sorry,” Riku says softly, and Sora deflates. Perhaps he was being a little unfair. Without his interference, it might have been the end for both Sora and Lea, and he realizes that he owes his life to Riku once again, for the thousandth time, in spite of the consequences. Come to think, Riku made having his back a full time job, and a thankless one at that. Sora rubs the back of his head, feeling a rush of gratefulness that Riku had been right beside him to swoop in when he needed him most. Just like always. 

“No. I’m sorry. Everything turned out okay, for the most part. ...Thank you.” 

There’s movement nearby. 

“What’s wrong?” they hear a voice call from the corridor, and in pops Roxas, Xion in tow. 

“Oh, thank goodness,” she says, running to where Sora is struggling to hold Lea in a semi-stable position and lending her assistance. Once Lea’s supported, she takes survey of the room. Much of it is still littered with embers. “We’ll debrief once we return to the tower, I guess.” 

This time it’s Riku who opens up the portal for them to stumble back home. 

\--

They’re celebrating, but it’s subdued, and a little somber--a fine layer of exhaustion drifts over the group as everyone sans the recovering Lea takes dinner together in the tower’s dining hall. 

Sora feels the pressure of a hand on his knee under the table, then looks up surreptitiously to meet Riku’s eyes as he stands up to leave. The look he gets is intense enough that he gets an involuntary shiver--message received. 

He waits a few long moments, makes his excuses, and makes his way up to his room. He’s barely shut the door before he finds himself pressed against it. He breathes into it, almost relieved; he’s getting too accustomed trying to get what he wants through coy teasing. He knew his efforts weren’t in vain because with just a little poking and prodding, physical or otherwise, he’d be rewarded with desire returned with gusto, but not without a few shots to the ego first--it seemed Riku still couldn’t ever deign himself to initiate. 

So here he is, kissed so hard he’s being pressed against the doorway, literally weak in the knees; he’s reaching for purchase on the mountain of his chest and is steadied by the length of a leg between his. He starts grasping at belts and buckles and buttons with no particular rhyme or reason, not having much success. He’s still fumbling when Riku parts from him. He makes a small noise of disappointment, puts his hands down slowly. Did he lose this opportunity already? He’s keenly aware of arms bracketing him into place. He looks up to find an almost calculating expression on Riku’s face, barely has time to reach out a hand to _touch, keep touching_ before he finds himself being haphazardly lifted up and practically thrown onto his bed--he lets out an undignified little shout of delight in spite of himself. 

Once again he is bracketed by strong arms; his heart’s pounding. He’s being straddled but not touched and their noses almost— _almost_ graze each other. He breathes out a frustrated sigh. 

“Can I—“ Riku asks, but Sora doesn’t let him finish before nodding aggressively. He feels the pressure of Riku’s hand bracing himself on the bed as Riku reaches over to rummage around for some of the supplies Sora had surreptitiously gathered one of the last times he’d been in town and scrambles with the rest of his clothes. 

Sora closes his eyes and feels lips pressed to his jaw, to his throat, to his collarbone, to his chest, in all the places where the darkling had tried to leave its mark. His eyelashes flutter at the sensation each contact, and as he starts to kiss further down he arches his back, squirming, and practically jackknifes forward when he feels Riku take him into his mouth. 

He barely has a chance to process that before it’s over. There’s a rustling noise, and he feels himself being pulled upward and then the sensation of cold, a hand--

He yelps, then laughs, throwing his head back with a helpless grin while squirming into it. 

“ _Ready_?” Sora hears, and manages to breathe out _uh huh, uh huh_ before he has another cry brought out of him; he scrambles up to hold on for dear life, sure he’s going to leave fingernail marks on Riku’s arms and _oh_ , now a set of claw marks all down his back, which apparently went over pretty well considering the groan Riku lets out in spite of his usual relative silence. Inspired, he puts both hands in his hair and _pulls_ , enormously satisfied to learn that it will earn him precisely the vocal response he was looking for with the added bonus of another enthusiastic thrust inside of him. He gasps, made weak for only a moment before retaliating, digging his fingers into his shoulders and pulling himself up so they meet eye to eye and then snakes an arm around his back to tug on his hair again, leaning in to capture and taste the moan it earns him. 

He shifts so that he can wrap his legs around his waist and adjusts _just so_ , smiling wide again at the ricochets of white pleasure, arching up and pressing down on beat to the metronome of Riku’s gasps. He steals those, too, then slides his hand from Riku’s shoulder to his wrist, directing him to bring him off. He obeys, patient and thorough, until Sora tips over to the breaking point. A cry stops halfway in his throat and he practically collapses with his nose pushed into the space between Riku’s shoulder and neck. Sora pants for a moment on his shoulder before he feels Riku finish and fail to stifle his last stuttering groan. 

Sora punctuates the end of that sentence with a laugh he can’t help but breathe into his neck. Some nervous energy has him hiccup a laugh again, then again, then again, then he realizes he’s not really laughing anymore. 

“Hey. Hey,” he hears, and while normally when the both of them finished Riku would wait passively to be wrapped up in whatever embrace he was due for, this time he wraps protective arms around him, puts a hand in his hair, smooths up and down his back so he stays warm. “Okay?” 

“I’m fine,” he mumbles, realizing with a short _mm_ that they’re still connected. He wraps his arms around his neck and shifts up, not quite ready to leave his arms. “I’m really fine, actually. Better than that,” he smiles. 

“Okay. Okay, good,” Riku whispers, and reaches up to brush some of the lengthy mess of Sora’s hair over his ear. “Good,” he repeats, like he’s not even aware he’s talking anymore, gently pulling his earlobe between thumb and forefinger. 

Riku pushes him back by the shoulders to look at him, now with a soft smile of his own, eyes hooded. He reaches up to touch his cheek, and presses his chin up so they meet eyes. Sora’s still feeling the residual sparks of adrenaline and shivers with it for the briefest moment, tilting his face up and meeting him halfway. Sora hovers indecisively for a moment before kissing him deeply. He uses all the time a breath will allow before pulling back. 

Riku blinks slowly, barely opening his eyes, and Sora reaches back up with a deeper breath to pull another kiss from him, reciprocated deeply, and they start the process from the beginning, and once more, and they progress into breathing around one another’s lips for another long few moments. Riku puts a hand behind his head and feels gently, just as he had done earlier, looking for damage. 

“Don’t worry,” Sora says with a touch of mirth, “you already patched me up just fine.” 

“I don’t--” he starts, tangling his fingers in his hair. “I won’t let… I always worry. I can’t let anything happen to you.” 

“No faith in me at all. I’m hurt,” he says, pressing his back to the wall with another slow kiss. 

“None,” he says, smiling around it, wrapping arms around his waist so they’re pressed together, meeting lips with no urgency at all. “Everything we’ve been through, and I could have lost you to that.” 

“Mm,” he replies, distracted by pliant lips. He tears himself away for a moment while still bracing him to the wall with one arm, yanking up the covers. He pulls them both into a horizontal position, flush against one another, and rolls right back to the goal to resume their lazy press of lips. 

“You can’t do that to me, you know,” Riku continues, pressing lips to his forehead, to his eyebrow, to his eyelid, to his cheek. “You can’t leave me,” he says to the corner of his mouth; “You’re not allowed,” to his jaw, and finally, to his nose:

“You have to promise.”

“I promise,” he says as the process begins anew on the other side of his face. “Just as long as you don’t take off on me.” 

“Now, does that really sound like me?” he says, but doesn’t allow him the chance to respond, starting back in on his lips and caressing his face one more time before wrapping himself around him entirely. 

_Not really_ , Sora thinks, drawing out more lazy kisses until he watches Riku’s eyelids droop. He blinks sleepily, still latched on, and presses his face into his collarbone, where he mutters something softly under his breath--Sora falls asleep himself before he can ask him what it was. 

\--

Sora comes to with the feeling of a hand on his face and blinks awake to the sight of Riku guiltily looking him dead in the eyes. He squints at him, blearily reaching up to scrub at the place on his cheek where Riku had just removed his hand like it burned him. Sora comes to realize that he has a slight headache and that his side is suddenly cold. 

“Hey,” he says by way of greeting, somewhat intelligibly. He puts together Riku’s sudden change in behavior with a frown. “What’s wrong with you?” _What’s wrong with_ me _?_ an unhelpful voice in his head supplies as a response. 

Riku looks very briefly taken aback, but resumes normal demeanor with irritating grace. 

“Nothing. Nothing,” he says, but least settles back down to blanket him again, which is much more like it. “Uh. Well. I…” 

He stops and tilts his head to face him. 

“I’m just glad you’re still in one piece,” he says finally. 

“Oh, I bet you are,” Sora responds, raising his eyebrows with a grin, expecting a smile. He doesn’t get one. 

“I just…” Riku starts, with a concentrated look downward. “You know you really should be more careful, you can’t just expect everything to turn out fine just because you waltz into a situation and want it to be--”

A _lecture_. Sora feels his face burn. So it wasn’t bad enough he’d learned this lesson the hard way the first time around; now Riku wanted to add insult to injury?

“Okay, fine. I get it,” he says tersely. “You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of it.” 

Riku gives a frustrated breath and props himself up, making to stand. “That’s not what--” 

“You can just stick to this part,” Sora interrupts cheerfully, putting his arms behind his head with a grin as Riku stands before him. Sora gives him the once over. “It’s okay! After all, I’d hate to wear out my _sparring partner_.” 

And apparently it’s not the olive branch he thought it was, because Riku gives him one long look of hard disbelief before turning away, grabbing his things and disappearing. 

\--

“You sure weren’t pulling any punches, were you?” Lea says with accusatory bite late that morning when he locks eyes with Riku as he enters the room. He’s holding a bag of ice to his head while reclined on a lounge chair in the commons in dramatic fashion. He makes to wriggle out of his sling--evidently not for the first time, as it earns him a spectacular slap in the same arm from Xion, who is painstakingly rewrapping one of his bandages. He howls. 

“Sorry,” Riku grits out, sounding truly chagrined. Lea gives him a scrutinizing stare. 

“...Don’t worry about it,” he says finally. “I don’t blame you.” 

This time Lea turns that stare in the direction where Sora stands passively observing. They lock eyes until the shortest moment later, when Roxas strides in with bag in hand ready to dole out comfort ice cream even in spite of it still being morning. 

“After all,” Lea continues, taking his ice cream with a genuine smile. “I owe you one. Whatever that thing was, it hurt my friends. I’m sure you understand.”

“I think that’s a pretty safe assumption,” Riku says. “I’m glad you’re okay. I hope we won’t have to deal with something like it again.” With that, he turns to leave about as soon as he came, embarking on a journey that seems to take him everywhere but where Sora is over the coming days. 

He’s absent from their room, and from the common area, and from the courtyard and the training grounds, and either flies solo or takes someone else on assignments long before Sora’s aware they’re happening. He’s stubbornly going to chalk it up to coincidence until he gets word otherwise. 

\--

“Stuck with me again, hm?” Kairi tells him as they gear up for another day’s assignment off world. 

Sora wrinkles his nose at her. 

“What are you talking about? I don’t have any problem going on missions with you!” 

“See, that’s the thing--you never _do_ go on missions with me. You never go on missions with _anyone_ else, actually. Except for your usual partner. Who is already gone. Again. So, you’re stuck with me.” 

“So you’re saying it seems like I only ever want to go on missions with Riku?” 

“I’m saying you’ve never really made an effort to prove otherwise.” 

He looks down at the floor for a moment, contrite. 

“I guess that’s just the way it always ends up,” he muses. 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Kairi says matter-of-factly. “It just made me wonder, why the sudden change?” 

He shrugs. 

“Well, I’ve got a hunch, and that hunch says that for whatever reason, you two aren’t getting along right now.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

“And don’t condescend to me. I don’t know what it is, but I do know that something’s put a wedge in between both of you-- _no one_ could miss that, and if you thought you were gonna put one past _me_ , well.” She cocks her head, then puts her hands on her hips and sends over a scrutinizing glare. 

“I wish I knew,” he concedes, forlornly drooping his head. 

“I do know _one_ thing. If you’re ever going to figure it out, you have to be the one to try and fix things. You know better than I do how stubborn he can be. I don’t know how much more of the _‘I’m fine, Kairi, don’t worry about it’_ I can take from that dirty liar before I start to scream.”

Sora rolls his eyes. That sounds about right. 

“Another thing,” she says. “You knuckleheads had better get it together, because it’s really bumming me out. I miss my best friends.” 

She’s absolutely right. The only problem would be hunting Riku down to show him he was willing to compromise. 

Eventually, finally, they intersect in a quiet alcove of the tower’s library, where Sora finds him pretending to pore over some large volume of _something_ at the desk placed there. He pulls over a chair as if to read along with him, with each little adjustment in his seat placing him a little closer. He’s turned the page a few times but Sora’s certain he hasn’t read a thing. He puts a hand on his knee, and leans in, dragging his hand so slowly up his inner thigh, putting their faces close enough together that it’s nothing for him to take his earlobe into his mouth--

Riku stands suddenly, causing the ornate chair to make a horrible scraping noise on the hardwood, and leaves the room. That’s a little harder to ignore. Sora stews amongst the books for a moment, fists clenched and ears red. He doesn’t know what he did to earn this freeze-out and what further olive branches he could possibly extend to get his point across. Perhaps he’s getting stale. Perhaps he’s just not good enough. 

The thought leaves a frustrated prickle in his eyes. The arrangement they had was nothing if not mutually beneficial, and it’s not like Riku was actively looking for any sort of replacement. So, nothing at all was better than Sora? He’d admit it felt like a slap to the face. But no one ever called him a quitter, and Sora resolves to cajole him back unto his good graces once more. 

He leaves Riku a wide berth for a few hours more, then slips back into their room, finding him sitting on his bed with a look of gloom. Sora sits down right next to him and takes one of his hands. 

“C’mon!” he says brightly. “This is supposed to be _easy_.” 

“ _Easy_?” Riku repeats, incredulous. “So it’s easy for you!” 

“What are you talking about?” 

Riku takes a deep breath. 

“Okay. I can’t do this anymore,” he says, standing take the high ground. “I can’t keep this up. I let it go on for way too long and I need to make it clear. No, it’s never been easy for me, and that’s on me.” He looks away for a moment before steeling himself to continue. “I’ve been lying to you the whole time--it was always going to mean something to me because _I have feelings for you_. So, first off, it’s not fair to you, since you’ve done nothing but make it abundantly clear that this is only temporary, so I guess here is as good a place as any to end it.” 

“... _What_?” 

Riku blazes past. 

“But somehow you haven’t picked up on how my entire life revolves around you,” he says, marching over to his desk. He busies himself by picking up a pen, but immediately sets it down again, looking at the wall. 

“Every single thing is for _you_. And I wonder, what if you’re just taking advantage of that? Because in here, all you want from me is…” he gestures back and forth weakly for a moment before giving up. “But as soon as someone’s watching you can’t bear to be within three feet. Like you couldn’t even imagine if it were real, like you’d be ashamed if we were really together.” 

He scrubs a hand down his face, and lets silence hang in the air for a moment. “I won’t do it anymore,” he says. “And if this is how it’s going to be then I won’t be your friend anymore, either. You can’t have both.”

Sora watches him stand stock still, like he’s analyzing the wall for imperfections. He can’t seem to open his mouth to respond; there’s nothing to say. If there were, the terrible feeling of dread moving in would have stolen the words from him anyway. Sora grabs a fistful of covers in each hand to tether himself down to wait for what the next wave would bring lest it knock him down entirely. 

“I keep turning it over again in my head--I would put everything on the line for you again and again for the rest of my life and it somehow still looks to you like I’m only in it to get off. Is that how it is for you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, but finally turns away from the wall to pace from one side of the room to the other. Some force propels Sora upwards as he continues. “You’ve successfully made me think that nothing else about me matters to you anymore, that it’s the only thing I’ll ever be good for again. And you would know that’s not true if you were still the same person I’ve been in love with for my entire life,” he says, finally looking him in the eyes. It’s not by choice. Sora’s come to meet him exactly where the next pace would take him, but the arm he’s raised to reach out to him is electrocuted still. 

“Y-your _whole life_?” he says, the words shocked out of him by that same jolt of lightning. He’s burning from his gut to his esophagus and suddenly feels flush all over. 

He doesn’t get a response; he’s being firmly moved aside to create an unobstructed path to the door.

“Whole life?” he repeats without an audience, swallowing through a terrible sinking feeling. 

 

The door hadn’t slammed but it had been shut with finalty and though it was hours ago the noise of it is still deafening throughout the room. He lays awake and turns it all over, the smooth and welcome invasion of his personal space and the sensation of the hand on his face, looking into hooded eyes, dangerously lightheaded, thinking all the way back to the secret place and the dripping water then the rushing in his ears and then nothing, even when he’d given permission, knowing now why he really hadn’t, not all the way. Not to have him like he really wanted. Taking everything from his lips to his life and never ever giving the heart he wanted in return, selfish, selfish. Sick to his stomach; _stupid_ : who else could come fill in the volume around him, envelop that negative space--who else would he want to? No one, and here he’d treated it like a game, a toy to play around with until he’d roughed too hard and broken it. Careless. Kept it all the time like a shameful secret. He didn’t even _have_ any secrets! He’d scream it to the Lanes Between if that’s what it took. But he could probably start simpler. 

In the morning all Sora’s suspicions are confirmed yet again when he wakes up still alone and absolutely _hates_ it. Empty bed, barren room--what a mess. He’d never let it happen again if he could finagle it. 

Resolute, he marches out of the room after throwing together a sloppy morning routine and heads towards the tower’s fully occupied common room. He perches at the threshold for a moment, spying Riku curled up in a chair, presumably licking his wounds. He’s replacing a delicate little tea cup to its saucer with one hand and cradling a book with the other, the _nerd_. His heart’s more off beat than Donald during a solo in Atlantica; Sora’s the dumbest being alive. 

“I’m an idiot,” he announces himself. He’s not scared anymore. It’s a testament to the all the damage he’s done when Riku looks up at him and instead of laying out flat a _“well, why don’t you tell me something I_ don’t _know”_ he simply shrugs, pained expression saying that he could agree, but what good would it even do? 

“No, really,” Sora says, striding over to meet him where he is as everyone else clues in to the commotion. “I’m sorry for _this_ ,” he says, tugging a startled Riku from his seat and yanking him down enough so that he can stand up on tiptoe and kiss the living daylights out of him for a staggering moment before stepping back and ensnaring him by the wrists. His book’s tumbled to the floor. “And I’m sorry for… for all _that_. I’m _not_ embarrassed of you and I don’t _want_ anybody else. I don’t want _you_ to want anybody else. I’m _nuts_ about you! I couldn’t do any better--you’re way out of my league as is. I know I hurt you and you don’t ever have to forgive me but I was just wondering, do you think maybe you could stay with me every day and every night until I die? Because I just realized I’m in love with you, and, like, for all of you, not just for your body.” 

Someone lets loose a scandalized gasp quietly in the background. 

“Until you die?” Riku says, and if Sora didn’t know any better he’d say he sounds… choked up? “I can’t make any promises--I heard somewhere that idiots live forever, and I don’t know if I can make that kind of commitment.” Ah, there he is. 

“Oh, that’s fine. All I know is I can’t spend another second letting you think that you somehow care about me more than I care about you because that’s just not true and I can’t believe--”

“Holy cow, do you _ever_ shut up?” Riku interrupts.

“No?” he says, sheepishly, “I guess not, huh. I mean, every once in a while I can--”

But he’s interrupted again, this time he’s the one with his daylights turned out, and possibly all the rest of his lights extinguished through the power of lip to lip contact too. He pulls away, darting eyes around the common room to take stock of who exactly has just witnessed the scene he’s just thrown and picked up in turn, and--

Lea clears his throat. 

“So,” he says, crossing one long leg over the other and gesturing out, indicating that he speaks for the benefit of the crowd. “How long has this been going on, exactly?” 

Riku raises a hand to his head and musses his hair in thought, with his other hand curling his fingers around where Sora has possessively shoved his own hand. 

“Just started, actually,” he says with conviction. 

**Author's Note:**

>  _immeasurable_ thanks to [pineovercoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineovercoat/pseuds/pineovercoat) for dragging me through this with support and patience and extraordinary insight. i'm so glad to have you as my KH fic buddy. 💖
> 
> catch me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/deathdrpdistant) or on my [soriku sideblog on tumblr](https://sora-esque.tumblr.com).
> 
> the title is from [this song](https://youtu.be/sjle_ZI4elo) and the album from which it comes is top tier.


End file.
